Maargan Movie Review: Vijay Antony's Film Is A Solid Crime Thriller With Forgivable Flaws

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Maargan is a great example of a genre film that engrosses its audience and makes one buy into the supernatural or pseudo-scientific framework.
Kolai, Raththam, Mazhai Pidikathavum Manidhanum, Hitler… after such a barrage of misses, a sense of prejudice is expected to set in when Vijay Antony comes up with another crime thriller. But a few minutes into the film, Maargan assures you that the streak will be broken. It exhibits good craftsmanship despite ticking all the boxes of genre films and treads carefully without breaching the territory of clichés. To top it all, it sets up an engrossing supernatural premise involving Siddhars and astral projections that effortlessly win you over. Tamil cinema tends to get overly didactic and self-congratulatory when it ventures into such themes of ancient knowledge. However, Leo John Paul's success lies in the way he effortlessly sells you his ruse. The trick, after all, is not to convince you to believe but to entertain enough that you don't mind.
To give the context, Maargan is an investigation thriller where an archetypical resigned police officer, Dhruv (Vijay Antony), takes up a case that looks similar to the murder of his daughter. A Chennai girl, on her birthday, is murdered by an unknown killer using a chemical cocktail which, when injected, burns the body from the inside, turning it black. Dhruv takes over the case unofficially and arrests a suspect named Tamilarivu (Ajay Dishan), a brilliantly written role. As Tamil is subjected to police interrogation, it is realised that he is innocent but has supernatural abilities that would aid the investigation. With his astral projection abilities, he puts himself at risk of finding the killer, which also turns out to be an effective surprise.
While Ajay Dishan, the debutant, does a fairly effective job, it is the writing that makes him a memorable character. His emotional stakes and the character arc that ultimately convince him to unleash his powers fully are some of the flourishes that make Maargan effective. As opposed to the role of Tamilarivu, Dhruv seems to be a bit redundant, to the extent that one wonders whether the protagonist was added to the story as an afterthought. A story of a man with astral projection abilities hunting down a serial killer with a past would itself make for an interesting narrative. Hence, Dhruv here serves only as a bridge to connect these two interesting characters without having been one himself. This, however, is a nuanced problem that gets overlooked with the pace of the film, which, at any given point, is progressing without slacking.
Guess this is where Leo John Paul–a well-known editor of films like Pizza and Maanagaram–complements the debutant director in him. His experience as an editor shows in the taut, structured, rarely meandering rhythm, even when dealing with outlandish concepts. Maybe the romantic story of Arivu ends up being a bit of a drag. Again, a forgivable problem. Maargan might not break new ground. It is largely a genre film about a serial killer, retaining all of its tropes. However, it proves that familiar genre tropes, when treated with sincerity and style, can still feel fresh.
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